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Wannabe rock gods rejoiced last year when Guitar Hero for PlayStation 2 made all the world – or at least the fantasy world of players' bedrooms – a stage. Publisher RedOctane sold a million copies of the game on the strength of its unique controller, a guitar-shaped device that let players riff along with smokin' tunes like Black Sabbath's "Iron Man." The follow-up, out in November, rocks even harder. Air guitarrorists can now choose to mimic lead, rhythm, or bass parts, and a beefed-up track list features the Stones, Rush, Nirvana, Gn'R, Spinal Tap, and more than 40 other role models. And unlike music games like Dance Dance Revolution, there's even a bit of narrative: As your ax-wielding chops improve, you headline at bigger venues in front of larger audiences. "Fans begged us to include the end of your career, where you're a burned-out mountain of flesh that dies of a drug overdose," says John Tam, executive producer at RedOctane, which decided to stick with onstage antics. Here are a couple more upcoming games in which your musical skill moves the story along.

ROCK 'N' ROLE-PLAYING

KARAOKE REVOLUTION PRESENTS: AMERICAN IDOL
Think you can stare down Simon Cowell? Impress avatars of the show's judges as you belt out cheesy pop classics like "Piano Man" and "Build Me Up, Buttercup." Just sing into a PlayStation 2 microphone (bundled with the game or sold separately), which analyzes your pitch and tempo to determine whether you should keep your day job. At the end of each performance, you're rated (or berated) by Simon and Randy.

ELITE BEAT AGENTS
In this wacky Japanese title, you control a band of "motivational secret agents" – grown male cheerleaders – who roam around helping people by, uh, dancing. You use your Nintendo DS stylus to drum on the lower screen in time with tunes like Steriogram's "Walkie Talkie Man," which triggers them to, say, encourage a director in the upper screen who's shooting a three-hankie weeper.

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John 3:16 – Bible passage or a cheat code? In Left Behind: Eternal Forces, out in November, it's both. Christian-themed games are nothing new, but few are as ambitious and polished as this PC title based on the best-selling evangelical book series. Players choose sides: Tribulation Force, a ragtag paramilitary that worships Jesus and kicks ass, or Global Community Peacekeepers, heathen internationalist pawns of the Antichrist. The mission is to convert as many souls as possible before the Lord returns to Earth. Now that I think about it, those smartly dressed young gentlemen that came to my door the other day must have been playing a meatspace version of this.

How to Serve in the Lord's Tribulation Force

1) Start Spreading the News In addition to points for standard attributes like Health, Strength, and Attack Speed, each avatar accumulates Spirit points, which help players convert the heathens. Pray regularly for more Spirit points – if one of your teammates runs low, they're susceptible to sinful temptations.

2) Shout at the Devil It's bad enough that the Antichrist commands a UN-like international army – he also has devil-worshipping heavy metal on his side. Get too close to satanic rock stars and the game warns, "Beware of musicians! They may play their screaming guitars to influence you to their side."

3) Surrender to Jesus According to the book series this game is based on, all this maneuvering by mere mortals is ultimately moot anyway, for the Lord returns to Earth, vanquishes his foes, and takes the faithful to heaven. Sorry, Lucifer, no power-up can help you defeat this final boss!

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Londoners call it the Oasis – an apt moniker for this 40-foot-tall interactive sculpture that's been charming city dwellers for months. The work, designed by Laurie Chetwood, is a place to bask in ambient infotainment. Five enclosed pods are each outfitted with three LCDs and two speakers to provide visitors location-specific data for wherever the Oasis happens to be (the installation is transported via lorry). At a music festival, for example, the A/V system would play concert footage. A stage, gathering area, and garden surround the structure's base. The Oasis is a zero-emissions sculpture that recycles natural resources and runs on solar, fuel cell, and wind energy. At night, it uses stored power for a light show. Next stop: British Council of Shopping Centres, Manchester, before taking a holiday in France.

Turns out, we're not the only ones who noticed the similarities: "All people know Sacha Baron Cohen imitate only me," Cagri recently fumed via email. "He is stealing my character and giving bad message to USA people." Cagri, who's been struggling to start a career in show business ever since his boom-era glory days, says he intends to sue Baron Cohen. "He never contacted me or got my permission," he writes. "If possible you can help me too for stop this or find good lawyer?" Sorry, we can't do that, but we can give Cagri the third degree – and let Wired readers be the judge.

WIRED: In the mock-doc, Borat is a globe-trotting journalist. Are you also a man of letters?
CAGRI: I do journalism as a freelancer sometimes. I go travel sometimes and take pictures-video-write, meet people for documentary.

Borat travels the US, examining American culture. Any memories from your visit in 1999?
I can't forget party about me in San Francisco. Many people kissed me, took my signature, and took picture. America mix culture and big country, but people don't think about other people. They love their own life only and fun-sex-game-drink.

Borat plays the guitar and sings Kazakh folk tunes. Are you also musically inclined?
I can play many instruments, but best I play accordion-flute-mandolin-violin-drum-and-saz (Turkish instrument). I like Cher and Shakira. Their voice and songs nice I like it.

Borat's signature is his mustache. Didn't you rock it first?
I start first grow mustache, 10 or 15 year ago. Sometimes, I been no mustache. I'm male and mustache shows a male mature.

Borat has his movie. Any plans for the Mahir Cagri story?
I'm trying to find USA publisher, and I hope I can receive good offer from Hollywood and play my own life and share with my fans, Julia Roberts, Spielberg, David Bowie, or others, this movie.

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Frozen landscapes. Flightless birds. Chilly relationships. It's tempting to flip off the animated musical Happy Feet as a cartoony capitalization on a certain documentary from 2005, but director George Miller (Mad Max, the Babe franchise) spent four years and around $70 million amassing a blizzard of CG tech, from an update of the software Peter Jackson used for Lord of the Rings to advanced mo-cap techniques courtesy of the Matrix f/x wizards. The result? An eye-poppingly photorealistic Antarctic ice field-cum-dance floor where CG birds shake a tail feather to "Boogie Wonderland." But did Miller really need to introduce disco to the South Pole?

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Richard Powers’ new novel,The Echo Maker, begins with a crash. A truck hurtles into a ditch on a country road in Nebraska. The driver, Mark Schluter, wakes up in the hos­pital with a brain injury. A woman at his bedside claims to be his estranged sister, Karin; Schluter is certain she’s an impostor. Powers employs Schluter’s predicament, based on a real neurological disorder called Capgras syndrome, to examine one of the brain’s most elusive mysteries: how it creates a unified sense of self from the raw data of the senses. In The Echo Maker, the 49-year-old novelist seems as much at home on the frontiers of neurology as he was in previous books exploring AI (Galatea 2.2), molecular biology (The Gold Bug Variations), and virtual reality (Plowing the Dark). A former programmer and the recipient of a MacArthur genius grant, Powers engages the emotions and intellect of his readers with equal intensity.

What can a novel tell us about science?
Most scientists today understand that the observer is part of the system under observation – complete objectivity is impossible. Scientific novels can talk about psychology, economics, politics, and the emotional lives of scientists, as well as how these things determine what work gets done in the lab. Fiction is one of the rare places where all the relationships between the observer and the observed – and the knower and the known – are precisely defined.

OK. But who has time to read a 500-page novel anymore?
There’s no question that technology has changed readers’ expectations and capabilities over the past 20 years. The global network is converging on the notion that you will always be on the grid – reachable in real time – by cell phone, email, RSS feed, or 24-hour headline news. The solitary, slow, contemplative removal from the world required to burrow into a lengthy narrative has become difficult to achieve. The novelist’s dream is to defeat real time. When Proust writes, “Mother ­carried me up the stairs,” the scene can last for 40 pages – but World War I goes by in a paragraph.

You wrote most of The Echo Maker on a tablet PC running voice recognition software. How did you arrive at that method of composition?
I’ve always wanted the freedom to be completely disembodied when I’m writing, to feel as if I’m in a pure compositional state. Typing is a highly unnatural activity, and your writing style ends up reflecting the cognitive shackles. When I started to use the tablet, things that are extremely difficult to do on a word processor opened up to me. I could also make drawings to see what a character looked like, and these sketches would be integrated into my research. Part of the mystery of The Echo Maker hinges upon what happened on a certain stretch of road on the night of the accident. I figured that out visually by drawing the scene over and over and seeing how all the elements moved in relationship to one another.

Reviewers often qualify their praise of your books with words like “cerebral” or “brainy.” Does that frustrate you?
Insofar as the implication is that “brainy” means cold. To think deeply is to feel deeply, and brainy is the hottest you can get. When I talk to scientists, I see clearly how urgent and emotional their work is to them. Neurologists like V. S. Ramachandran and Antonio Damasio are now discovering that reason and feeling are interdependent even at a structural level in the brain. So what I hope is that my books show how desperate, passionate, and hot-blooded thinking can be.

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Supporting your local band used to mean coughing up a $5 cover charge and staking out a spot in the front row. Then came MySpace, which let you and your favorite musicians become, like, totally good friends. Now a new music site thinks it's time to rock this relationship to the next level. On SellaBand.com, artists don't want buddies, they want "believers."
As a believer, you buy shares of an unsigned band's stock for $10 a pop. Once an act accrues $50,000, it records a CD, churns out 5,100 copies (one for each believer share and 100 for the band), and enlists you to tirelessly promote the group until it generates major buzz, resulting in a big record deal, a multiplatinum smash, and … well, see you at the Grammys, yo!

But before you early adopters get all Sally Struthers ("For the price of two venti chai Frappuccinos, you can save the next Death Cab for Cutie. Give now!"), a glance at SellaBand's newfangled business model reveals a record contract that would make Phil Spector proud: SellaBand retains the rights to all the band's masters for one year, with a cut of the publishing royalties in perpetuity. As for the believers, the bulk of your profit, such as it is, derives from the site's ad revenue and a portion of album sales.

But you can never overestimate how hungry a band can get for a shot at the small time. Interest in SellaBand is already percolating in Europe. "We've had a hard time breaking out through traditional routes," says Ian Marien of the Belgian band Headphone – one of the site's more popular acts, with just over 100 shares sold as of late September. And similar crowdsourced sites (like BurnLounge.com, which turns every music lover into a music retailer) are cropping up stateside, banking on your eagerness to invest in the Next Big Thing.

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The IBM 1401's essential stats: 25,000 multiplications per minute, up to 4,000 positions of core storage, and quite the accomplished singer. Just ask Jóhann Jóhannsson, an Icelandic composer whose latest work, IBM 1401, a User's Manual, is a requiem for this Model T of data-processing systems. Before the 1401 was retired, Jóhannsson's father, the machine's chief maintenance engineer in Iceland, managed to coax electromagnetic waves from its ferrite core memory by placing a radio receiver close by. The 1401 emitted a cello-like tone, which the engineers learned to modulate by giving specific sets of instructions to the memory. "It was supposed to be used in banks to calculate payrolls," Jóhannsson explains, "but they programmed quite complex Bach tunes and fugues. They taught it to sing."

You'll have to overclock the volume to hear those mainframe melodies in Jóhannsson's homage, which combines organ and string arrangements with music that his father recorded from the 1401 at its farewell ceremony in 1971. From those tones, Jóhannsson built A User's Manual into an epic five-part suite that's both John Barry film score and neoclassical experiment. "I was interested in the emotions evoked by the machine," he says, "and these programmers paying their last respects."

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Most sailboats get airborne when seas are rough – and that's usually a bad thing. But l'Hydroptère (Greek for "marine wing") soars by design, rising 4 feet out of the water (the crew attains an altitude of 15 feet) thanks to three state-of-the-art hydrofoils. The 60-foot trimaran was conceived and built using principles from both the maritime and aviation worlds to reduce drag – the velocity-killing bane of most boats. Not surprisingly, its creators have the sailing world's speed records in their sights. L'Hydroptère recently navigated 19 miles across the English Channel in an unprecedented 34 minutes and 24 seconds – that's an average speed of 33 knots (around 38 mph). Now the boat's designers are crafting a long-distance model, l'Hydroptère Maxi, with the goal of shattering a whole new class of sailing record – circumnavigating the globe. Prepare for liftoff.

1) Hydrofoils Two hydrofoils set at angles on the vessel's arms provide side stability, while a T-shaped foil on the rear of the central hull acts as the rudder.

2) Flight With 12 knots of wind in its sails, l'Hydroptère begins to rise on its hydrofoils. The hull lifts about 4 feet above the water as the boat accelerates.

3) Structural monitoring An onboard processor linked to 67 sensors monitors and analyzes stress on the hull, hydrofoils, and other components.

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The original urban art transformed concrete into canvas using a few cans of Krylon. Now Felix Beck, a designer in Berlin, is graffitiing cities with noise. Beck's Soundbombs are innocuous-looking 6-inch plastic shells that broadcast short clips (lines from Shakespeare, flatulence, or anything else you record) to unwitting passersby. The innards are pure RadioShack – a circuit board, 6-volt power cells, and a motion sensor that triggers the audio. "I wanted to draw attention to street art by emphasizing it acoustically," Beck says. "Sound jars people into an awareness of their surroundings."

Soundbombs can be purchased through Beck's Web site (www.soundbombs.info), but he won't sell to just anyone: Wannabe audio anarchists submit applications describing what the device will be used for and how much they're willing to pay. He's received 2,500 proposals, some as esoteric as the aerosol art that inspired his project – including designs for a sound-based scavenger hunt and a possum deterrent to protect rosebushes. His favorite? "A woman who bombed her fridge to remind her not to break her diet," Beck says. That would be the Nagbomb.

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In the land of kawaii (cute), a Magic Eight Ball just isn’t trustworthy enough. Teens in Japan turn to a seizure-prone figurine for help with life’s biggest decisions. Unazukin, which looks like a Russian nesting doll and reacts to questions and sounds with either a nod (yes) or a shake (no way!). It’s like flipping a coin, but instead of stern old Lincoln staring back at you, a babushka-wearing egg settles your disputes. More than a million of the $13 toys have sold in Japan, leading stores in the UK to try to duplicate the craze. Since its British invasion earlier this year, blogs and Flickr groups have obsessed over the adorable counselors. The geniuses behind these tremulous characters? Bandai, of course, who also gave the world Tamagotchi. And if that virtual pet’s success is any indicator, it’s just a matter of time before this latest mania spreads to the US. Will it be a hit, Unazukin?

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One major reason comic books aren't just about superheroes anymore is Sandman. Neil Gaiman began writing the groundbreaking series in 1989, reimagining a gas mask-clad avenging hero of the 1940s as the "anthropomorphic personification" of sleep and dreams. (A platoon of brave, experimental artists like Sam Kieth and Chris Bachalo tackled the graphics.) The first few issues are set in the prosaic DC Comics universe of costumes and supervillains. But the series quickly turns elegantly surreal: Images shift and slide, cats talk, and Death is a friendly teenaged goth chick. This Absolute treatment livens up the old colors and collects the first 20 issues, plus extras like Gaiman's initial pitch for the book, in a fancy (and hefty) hardcover. Cancel my appointments.
– Adam Rogers

Print
Spectacle
David Rockwell with Bruce Mau
"Get off the computer!" exhorts architect David Rockwell in his coffee-table-sized celebration of the globe's biggest, most visually stunning live events – Nascar races, Burning Man, the Hindu festival of Kumbh Mela. In Q&As and short essays, contributors ranging from Muhammad Ali to Steve Wynn persuasively champion the inimitable thrill of real time and space. Of course, the graphic design by Bruce Mau is a spectacle in itself.
– Andrew Blum

Games (XBox 360)
Gears of War
With scary creatures, bombed-out cityscapes, and chain-saw bayonets, this Halo-killer looks like a typical mindless shooter. But to survive, you'll have to duck and cover, not run and gun. And you're helpless without your teammates, whether they're the excellent in-game AI or other human players.
– Chris Baker

Games (Nintendo DS)
Final Fantasy III
In 1990, FF III redefined role-playing games in Japan. Finally, an English-language version is here, with updated 3-D graphics and new versions of old 8-bit tunes. The story line and dungeon design are a bit creaky, but the immersive gameplay is timeless.
– Chris Kohler

Games (PSP)
Every Extend Extra
Gorillaz: Rise of the Ogre
Literally drop da bomb in this hybrid shooter and puzzle game. Steer your explosive avatar through a trippy maelstrom of crystals and self-destruct before they smack into you. Multiplayer mode and a groovy soundtrack guarantee hours of blissful sloth.
– Daniel Dumas

Games (PC)
Flight Simulator X
With missions that go from the serious (air-drop relief supplies over the Congo) to the silly (race a jet-powered truck), this 10th takeoff in the pilot-approved series mixes fun with fuel-to-air ratios. The graphics are stunning – even the baggage vehicles look totally sweet.
– Crispin Boyer

Screen (Theaters)
Lost in Translation
BABEL

Why can't humans communicate better? Director Alejandro González Iñárritu (21 Grams) takes the Old Testament answer – we were doomed by God never to understand one another – as the metaphor for a searing drama that traces the divides in our globalized world. Babel follows two Moroccan boys who shoot at a tourist bus for kicks and the quarreling California couple inside (Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett), whose vacation goes from bad to worse. Parallel stories unfold in San Diego and Tokyo involving an illegal Mexican nanny and a deaf Japanese schoolgirl. At Cannes, Babel received an extraordinary six-minute ovation – suggesting that Iñárritu is one filmmaker who can speak to us all.
– Frank Rose

Screen (Theaters)
For Your Consideration
After hits like Best in Show, director Christopher Guest has turned his merry band of satirists into the cast and crew of an indie film titled Home for Purim, a Southern-fried melodrama deemed Oscar-worthy by a blog. The targets are easy, but when the result is this hilarious, who cares?
– Michelle Devereaux

Screen (Theaters)
Piano Tuner of EarthQuakes
The latest from the Brothers Quay is a surreal, Jules Verne-inspired tale of a kidnapped opera singer. It's mesmerizingly lush and fairly unintelligible, but no one looks to the Quays for plot; the dreamy visuals and fantastical setting are the real stars.
– Alison Willmore

Music
Joanna Newsom
Ys
Five majestic tracks comprise the singer-harpist's second album, as she melds Björk, Billie Holiday, and English folk sensibilities. Tracks like "Emily," on which legendary songwriter Van Dyke Parks conducts a full orchestra, lift Newsom to new heights.
– Ken Taylor

Music
Swan Lake
Beast Moans
What is it with indie-rock Canucks and collaboration? Featuring members of Destroyer, Wolf Parade, and Frog Eyes, Beast delivers spacey synth, folkie lyricism, and distorted guitars, conjuring an eclectic sum that's at times bolder than its parts.
– Steven Leckart

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Screen (TV)
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
Yes, it has Aaron Sorkin’s trademark (and sometimes grating) dialog, but we can’t help ourselves. With great work from Bradley Whitford and Matthew Perry, NBC’s new behind-the-scenes drama about a TV comedy takes some of the sting out of Mondays.

Print
Spy: The Funny Years
This history-cum-scrapbook chronicles the antics and infighting behind Spy. The magazine changed pop culture by turning A-list celebrities and ­power-brokers into objects of mass ridicule. But its ­cruelest cuts reveal truly first-class muckraking.

Games (PC)
Procedural Arts’ Façade
In this engrossing sim, you spend an evening with a couple that fights relentlessly. Tread carefully! Your every action – noble, malicious, indifferent – affects their powder keg of a marriage. At long last, it’s available as a Mac download.

Music
Live at KEXP, Volume 2
A rockin’ compilation disc from KEXP, our favorite radio station in Seattle (and streaming online at www.kexp.org), features 20 exclusive, live in-studio recordings. Standouts: performances by the Editors, Aqualung, and Drive-By Truckers.

Screen (DVD)
Mothra vs. Godzilla
The greatest rivalry in the history of le cinéma du monstre gigantesque wades ashore in November on DVD. Sure, the big lizard has the brawn, but the giant insect has the brains, plus a pair of crafty caterpillar offspring – fearsome even in larval form.

Print
Geek Logik: 50 Foolproof Equations for Everyday Life
Should you call in sick? Can you still wear a Speedo without frightening small children? Garth Sundem’s amusing guide offers complex equations to solve common problems (calculator included).

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Before games had pixels, they had balls of steel. Rediscover those arcade days with this Marvel-themed two-thirds-scale pinball machine. It has flashing lights, lanes, bumpers, a spinner, and even paddles triggered by electromagnetic solenoids, just like its full-size forebears. Add LED playfield illumination, sound effects, music, and the voices of classic characters – Dr. Doom, Magneto, Wolverine – and you're in for retrofied fun that will tilt your world.Marvel Pinball: $400,www.zizzle.com

Petite Syrah

You don't have to be an enologist to launch a wine-making career. This computer-controlled vat will help you ferment it yourself. Order grapes online – most major varietals will be available by 2007 – and drop them into the 75-liter stainless steel container. They're pressed under 2 tons of pressure, then sugar, acid, and temperature levels are monitored for two weeks by sensors linked wirelessly to your PC. After that, it couldn't be easier: Age it in oak, bottle it, and raise a glass to the talented winemaker (that would be you).WinePod: $2,000,www.mywinepod.com

Never Forget a Face

Work with me, people! Like a fashion photographer, this 6.3-megapixel shooter is attuned to faces. Through its zoom lens (28- to 300-mm equivalent), it quickly detects the mugs of up to 10 people within the frame, then optimizes focus and exposure to make them look like supermodels on a set – or at a family reunion. Uncle Jimmy never looked so (gulp) sexy.FinePix S6000fd: $500,www.fujifilmusa.com

Snow Pack

Slurping on the slopes is difficult, as winter temperatures can turn your liquids into solids. This backpack has an insulated antibacterial Nalgene bladder and a heated drinking tube juiced by four AAs, ensuring
that your hydration never hardens. In 15-degree weather, water normally freezes in six minutes. The Flask keeps H2O from icing over for more than 20 hours. Now you'll never have to hightail it back to the lodge to quench your thirst.Flask: $120,www.thenorthface.com

Control Freak

Any universal remote can control a home theater. The Harmony 1000 can dim the lights before starting the show. Using Z-Wave, a home automation standard, the remote can turn on appliances, close shades, and adjust the thermostat. With a 3.5‑inch touchscreen and support for 150,000 devices in its online database, the handheld can replace up to 15 clickers. Just don't lose it between the couch cushions.Harmony 1000: $500,www.logitech.com

Life Is But a Stream

Jacking an iPod into a high-end stereo is blasphemy to audiophiles. This streamer collects tunes from Windows and Mac machines via Wi-Fi or Ethernet and packs an AK4396 digital-to-analog converter – renowned for high dynamic range and low distortion – to handle almost every music format imaginable. Couple the incredible fidelity with the bobbing VU meters and you'll swear the thing is powered by tubes.Transporter: $2,000,www.slimdevices.com

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Teeny Boppers

Remember megabytes? With the price of memory dropping like Gnarls Barkley tracks at your cousin's bat mitzvah, MP3 players with anything less than 2 gigabytes of storage are becoming scarce. Mid-capacity devices store thousands of tunes and include features – FM radio, recording, video and picture viewing – previously found only on their expensive, jukebox-capacity sibs. Yes, we know the excellent iPod nano just got even better, but its functionality hasn't really changed since its first generation. Here are some alternatives that are easy to pocket and offer solid battery life. – Sean Cooper

WHAT TO LOOK FOR

Extras Figure out what capabilities you actually need, and don't fall for feature bloat. Videos on a sub-2-inch screen aren't that great anyway.Size Remember: The tinier the player, the bigger the price. Just get one that's small enough.Navigation As players shrink, it becomes more difficult to design buttons that can accommodate fingers. Make sure you can move through menus and adjust volume without a hitch.

iRiver Clix (2 Gbytes)
The 2.2-inch color screen on the Clix rocks vertically and horizontally on its two axes, serving as a giant D-pad for cueing up tunes and tweaking settings. It's the first navigation scheme to differ dramatically from the iPod's that doesn't suck. In fact, it's a kick to use and a satisfyingly elegant way to access the player's oodles of features: FM radio and voice recording, video and picture viewing, even Flash games. But video support is limited to 15 frames per second – just a step above those Post-it note flip books that keep you awake during PowerPoint presentations – and there's no line-in recording without the $70 dock.WIRED: Great design, good sound. Pics are sharp and richly detailed on the 260,000-color LCD. Supports open source OGG format and Microsoft's Janus DRM for download and subscription content. Impressive 27-hour battery life.TIRED: Only 2 gigs. Cradle with built-in speakers, alarm clock, and line-in recording runs you another $70. Doesn't work with Macs.$200www.iriveramerica.com

Go With the Grain

Billions of people worldwide have proven otherwise, but rice still has a reputation on this continent for being hard to cook. Consider replacing that crusty old pot with a dedicated cooker; the right one can mean perfect, fluffy rice with minimal hassle – and can let you kick Uncle Ben out of the kitchen. – Christopher Null

Sanyo ECJ-F50SWIRED: Compact design with big buttons. Heavy inner bowl promotes even cooking. Overall best in test with fluffy long-grain rice and very good medium-grain rice. Includes steamer insert.TIRED: No chime when rice is done. Slow to cook, taking an average of 36 minutes.$140www.sanyo.com

Cuisinart CRC-800WIRED: A real speed demon: from box to dinner in about 17 minutes. Surprisingly good at long-grain rice. LED indicates when it's done. Inexpensive.TIRED: So messy that it's disgusting to clean up. Lid handle gets too hot to touch. Produced somewhat gluey medium-grain rice.$80www.cuisinart.com

Stargazers

Search for the next dwarf planet with one of these 8-inch-diameter computerized scopes, which can even guide you through a preprogrammed list of heavenly bodies. They're the perfect size for the backyard astronomer – big enough to gather lots of light, small enough to still be portable. – David Chandler

Celestron NexStar 8i Special EditionWIRED: Info-packed manual. Setup's a breeze. Finder scope homes in on object of focus with a red dot rather than the usual crosshairs. Great magnification for viewing moon and planets.TIRED: Confusing button layout on hand controller.$1400www.celestron.com

Meade 8-inch LX90GPSWIRED: Simple operation. Only scope we tested with handles on sides of mount. Half the length of the Orion – easy to transport. GPS included.TIRED: Confusing manual. High-pitched whirring from motor when pivoting rapidly from one object to the next. Too pricey for budget-minded novices.$1,900www.meade.com

Orion Sirius 8 EQ-GWIRED: Solid and well designed. Wide field of view good for observing objects that are spread out.TIRED: Separate manuals for scope and mount. (Figure out the mount first or you'll be really confused.) Extras can add up: $30 for an AC adapter, $100 for a rechargeable battery system. Heaviest model tested.$1,450www.telescope.com

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Canon PowerShot SD630
This slim cam let me take pictures of 50-plus relatives and direct a photo shoot, all while checking out the stunning images on its big 3-inch screen. – Zana Woods$400,www.usa.canon.com

2006 Toyota Prius
"WIRED EDITOR BUYS HYBRID CAR" – now there's a cliché. Still, I feel awfully clean since I dumped my '95 Explorer. And at 55 miles per gallon, I'm laughing all the way to the bank. – Bob Cohn$21,725,www.toyota.com

Uni-ball EX2 Pastel Gel Pens
Not since high school has the research crew been so psyched about a pen. Don't let the purty colors fool you – these bad boys write on anything. Wired + Uni-ball = BFF. – Greta Lorge$9 (8-pack),www.uniball-na.com